


A Mother's Love

by Leahelisabeth (fortheloveofcamelot)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Curses, Gen, Mary has a hard time with feelings, Mom Jody, Platonic Cuddling, Sam needs a mom, Witches, spn canon big bang 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2017-08-04
Packaged: 2018-12-10 23:54:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11702475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fortheloveofcamelot/pseuds/Leahelisabeth
Summary: Mary loves her boys, really she does, but she can't quite seem to click with Sam.  She'll need to figure it out when a mother's love is the only thing that can save him from a witches curse.





	A Mother's Love

**Author's Note:**

> This was my submission for the 2017 SPN Canon Big Bang. Lots of thanks to my artist, kuwlshadow. Her art post can be found [here](http://kuwlshadow.livejournal.com/89535.html). This is my second time working with her and I feel very lucky to be paired with her again. Please go give her some love!

It was just so strange. One moment, she’s putting her babies to bed, she’s kissing them goodnight, and singing them lullabies, and with barely a breath between, she’s standing before her two grown sons and they’re looking at her like she is the answer to their whole fucked up childhood.

And it’s just too much. It’s bad enough that Dean is grown. She had four years with him and as much as he looks like a Campbell and has become a strong, capable, man, she can still see glimpses of the child. He still loves pie. He makes the same face when he is being stubborn, even though the stubble on his chiseled jaw makes the overall effect considerably less adorable. And even though he has changed a lot, she still feels like she can be his mother.

But she is completely out of her depth with Sam. The only things she remembers are things like the way his diapers smelled and sleepily crawling out of bed to quiet his hungry cries. He smiled a lot and those dimples strike a chord sometimes and she wishes she’d had more time with him and to watch him grow. Maybe then she could have figured him out. She just can’t reconcile the man that dwarfs her and her older son with the infant she cradled in her arms. 

And Dean still feels like he fits. He has the same no-nonsense attitude she remembers from her father and the same fire she remembers from John. But Sam, she doesn’t know where he got his gentleness. He’s strong and capable too, but he hugs her like she’s unbearably precious and he brings her tea and gives her space while craving her company. She thinks her own mother might have been gentle like that once, but she always faded into the background and toed the line her husband drew and she simply can’t see Sam resigning himself to the shadows that way.

And Mary is just so confused. She feels guilty even as she leaves her boys behind. She knows they don’t understand, even though Sam will try his best to be okay and help his brother be okay too. And so she ignores the pang in her heart every time she looks at Sam’s contact information and then scrolls up to text his brother. She pushes away the uneasiness when she ignores the texts from her youngest, choosing instead to give Dean messages to pass on to his brother. She even chokes down the tiny guilt when she nudges Dean on Words with Friends and doesn’t invite Sam to a game. 

One day, she is cleaning her gun in the hotel room after a successful werewolf hunt and her phone rings, startling her out of her focus. Her stomach leaps into her throat when she sees Sam’s name. He never calls. He texts or he gives Dean messages for her or he offers a few phrases when Dean puts the phone on speaker but he never takes this initiative. Her finger hovers over the answer button but her indecision costs her and the phone call ends and she isn’t ready to call him back.

She sighs and tosses her phone onto the bed and heads into the bathroom to shower. She has missed two more calls from Sam when she gets out so she texts Dean.

(11:38) Everything alright?

He doesn’t answer in the next few minutes so she sets her phone to silent, turns out the light, and crawls into bed.

The guilt is harder to ignore the next morning when she finds another 15 missed calls and as many texts, all with variations of “call me,” and “I can’t talk over the phone.” The last one, from approximately 3 a.m., reads only, “never mind. I’ll get Dean to call you when it’s over.” Mary rolls her eyes and wonders where her youngest could have possibly gotten his drama queen tendencies, certainly not from her or John. She remembers her dad commenting scornfully on Gwen Campbell’s hysterics and complaining about his brother’s parenting mistakes and she wonders if John had just failed to help him grow out of it. Sam had been colicky at times. She still remembers how he screamed and cried in the middle of the night and how everything seemed so insurmountable when she couldn’t even bring herself to smile at her baby. He had been so unlike her sweet Dean. Dean had been a perfect baby and, even though his toddler years had definitely had their challenges, he continued to be good-natured. She sighed. She hadn’t known how to love Sam then and nothing had changed with her death and resurrection.

She was brought out of her reverie when her phone rang again., this time from a number she didn’t recognize.

“Hello?” she answered.

“Mary?” a woman’s voice asked.

“Yes,” Mary replied.

“Are you hunting something big right now?” 

“Um...I’m between jobs right now. Who is this? Do you need help? I can be on the road in an hour.” Mary dug a notebook and pen out of the easy access pocket on her duffel bag.

“No, I don’t need help. I was just wondering what the hell could be going on in your life to cause you to ignore your boy when he needs your help. I guess you’re just looking for excuses to stay out of his life.” The woman’s voice blasted through the phone and Mary had to pull it a few inches away from her ear.

“Excuse me? Who the hell do you think you are?” she yelled back, just as loud.

“We’ve met. Jody Mills?” Jody’s voice dropped to more reasonable volume levels.

Mary thought and briefly remembered a dark haired woman at Asa’s funeral. “I remember. What gives you the right…”

“What gives me the right? Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve been mothering Sam every chance I get for years but now, when he has an actual mother to call on, I get calls in the middle of the night from him telling me he needs my help and you’re busy.” Jody started shouting again

“No one asked you to mother him,” Mary muttered.

“You’re right. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t need it. You’re meeting us in Wisconsin and you had better be prepared to apologize.”

“Surely if there was a real problem, Dean would have called,” Mary protested.

“Dean’s missing, which you would have known if you had picked up your damn phone.”

“Dean’s gone?” Mary couldn’t help the sharp note of worry that crept into her voice.

“Unbelievable. Meet us in Spring Green, Wisconsin. Sam is staying in room 127 at the Innsborough Motel.” And Jody hung up.

* * *

Mary pulls up outside the hotel and just sits in the vehicle with the engine idling, gathering her courage to go inside. She sees a woman with short, dark hair getting out of a beat up truck in front of Sam’s room and knows she has no time to just sit around, especially when the woman spies her and waves.

She gets out but doesn’t bring anything in besides the gun in her waistband. Part of her is still hoping that Dean will answer the door and they’ll have a good laugh about the long trip she took for nothing. And Mary will give her boys a hug, eat a dinner with copious amounts of bacon, answer a call part way through for another hunt, and take dessert to go.

But the Sam who answers the door is not the Sam she expected. His eyes are red and his hair is greasy and stringy. His face is unshaven and his voice is rough and worried. He, for lack of a better word, collapses into Jody and lets her hold him for a little while. After Jody has pushed his hair back from his face and given him a little bit of time to seek comfort, he pushes himself back to standing and notices Mary for the first time. 

“Oh, Mom, you came!” He sounds surprised and Mary winces as he pushes his strongest emotion back down and finds a shy and dimpled smile for her. “Come in.” He moves around restlessly once they get inside, picking up an empty dish here or a piece of trash there. “You guys want coffee if I make another pot?”

“I would love some coffee, Sam.” Jody said, walking with purpose to where Sam stood by the sink. “Here, I’ll make some and you can go and lie down and take a nap while Mary and I get caught up on this hunt.”

Sam opens his mouth to protest but he’s already being herded toward the bed. He’s lying down with the blankets tucked around him almost before he manages to put together a thought. “You’ll wake me up-” he asks in a small voice. “-if you find Dean?”

“I promise,” Jody whispers tenderly. “I’m sure all this needs is fresh eyes. We’ll need you rested for later when we go and get your brother back.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Sam murmured as he dropped off to sleep.

“How long has MY son been calling you mother,” Mary scowls at Jody. 

“As long as he’s needed to. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that your son grew up completely without a mother and with a father who had his head shoved so far up his own ass that he taught his boys to ignore their emotional needs.. Would you really begrudge him any shot he had at comfort, especially when you’ve so clearly chosen your favourite son?”

“I did not choose any of this,” Mary hissed.

Jody just looked sad. “I know. But you’ve been given a second chance with your sons. What I wouldn’t give...just...don’t waste this. Sam is a good man, the best sort of man. Try to see that.”

Mary cleared her throat in discomfort before turning to the laptop on the table. “We should get to work on finding Dean,” she said. 

Sam already had much of it solved. They were in town to investigate a series of strange deaths. All the victims were men from the ages of about 25-45. They had no family and few friends. The first body was dumped approximately one mile outside the town and each body had been about one mile away from the previous one, forming a long, curved line. The strangest past was that the bodies had been cooked through but there were no burns on the skin. It was as if they had been microwaved.

Sam suspected witches. Mary and Jody concurred. But Sam had no idea of the purpose of the bodies and, although he suspected the coven was making a circle of bodies around their hideout, he as yet had no clue where they were located.

“Sam should have done a locating spell already,” Mary shook her head. “Doesn’t he realize that time is of the essence?”

Jody just glared at her again. “Sam put all this together. We can’t go in blindly and he knew he needed backup. Plus, who knows how long he had been awake when we showed up.”

“Excuses just get you killed,” Mary glared right back.

“And arguing isn’t going to get us any closer to finding Dean. Do you actually have a locating spell you can do with the ingredients we have on hand or are you just being difficult?” 

Mary intensified her glare but stalked out to her vehicle to grab the ingredients for the spell. When she walked back into the room, Jody was leaning over Sam and speaking gently. She had a mug of coffee ready in her hand and Sam was yawning and stretching and reaching out to Jody with gratitude in his eyes. “This won’t take long,” she barked.

Sam jumped and rolled out of bed, practically standing at attention. “What can I do?”

“You can make sure the weapons are in order,” Mary made an effort to soften her voice. It wasn’t his fault after all that Jody was able to bond with him where she was not. Sam grinned at her in relief and came over to clasp her shoulder with one giant hand.

“Thanks, Mom. I’m glad you came,” Sam said softly. He lingered as if he might hug her but then thought better of it.

Mary spread the map out flat in the middle of the table and pulled out the deep blue crystal on a chain that Mr Ketch had given her. She muttered a few words over it and held it out so it hung over the map. It swung slowly in wide circles for a few minutes before gradually narrowing the swing and stopping over a field about three miles out of town. Mary circled the area with a pen and stuffed the crystal back into her pocket. 

“This is where we’re going, somewhere inside that circle.” Mary announced. Jody and Sam circled around the table and looked closely at the map.

Sam tapped the map with one finger. “There is an abandoned barn just here that Dean and I were planning to check out. I think we should start with that.”

“Let’s go,” Mary said, grabbing up the few belongings she had brought into the room. “I need to rescue my boy.”

Jody rushed into her car and drove off. Mary looked at her own vehicle and sighed before following Sam over to the Impala. “Can I drive?” she asked.

Sam hesitated for a moment before tossing the keys to her. Then they both got in and peeled out of the parking lot. Sam clasped his hands together tightly. Mary could see his knuckles turning white and, damn it, it should not be this hard to talk to her youngest son. She was his mother for God’s sake! 

“We’ll get him back,” Mary finally said.

Sam looked over at her and she couldn’t meet his eyes. Every feeling was so clearly written on his face and for a moment she wished so hard that she could love him the way he loved her. But now was not the time to be vulnerable. Dean had to be her only priority right now. They were silent until they reached the edge of the field. And that didn’t change as they gathered their gear and prepared to sneak up on the barn.

Sam still looked tired but Mary knew he would not be the weak link in this fight. Whatever kept her from connecting with Sam, it had nothing to do with his hunting ability. She was determined it wouldn’t be her either. She looked speculatively at Jody but Jody just flipped her off and readjusted her grip on her gun.

Mary elbows her way into the lead and Sam brings up the rear as they carefully enter the barn. It takes them all of 0.3 seconds to be noticed. A wailing begins the moment they touch the door and Mary knows they have already lost the element of surprise. She kicks the door in and goes in, firing at the first movement she sees. She barely has a moment to wonder why witches never stopped meeting in abandoned places wrapped head to toe in black. Surely there were better ways to remain secret. They were already melting into the shadows.

Their leader, so designated by an ornate medallion hanging heavy between her breasts, did not scatter with the rest. She extended her hands and began to chant. Mary emptied her clip and reached for another one but the witch did not flinch. Light built up in her hands and shot forward and Mary had nowhere to run. A blur came at her from the side and knocked her to the ground and then Sam, Sam was screaming. Mary had never heard such a sound. She knew Sam’s pain tolerance was through the roof and for him to make that sound. She didn’t know how to feel.

The witch turned, beginning her chant once more. But Jody was faster. She had snuck around while the witch was distracted and hit her from behind with a quick double tap, heart and brain, with witch killing bullets.

Mary didn’t even bother to stand, she pulled herself to a crouch at Sam’s side, hoping that the spell, whatever it was, would die with the witch. But Sam continued to writhe on the ground, drenched in sweat, his temperature rising rapidly.

“Mary, Dean is here,” Jody called from the loft. Mary pulled herself to her feet and climbed quickly into the loft, leaving Sam on the ground. Jody looked surprised to see her. “But Sam?”

“Sam is alive,” Mary barked. “I needed to make sure my boy was too.”

“You have two boys,” Jody scowled.

“And if you care about them, you’ll help me get them back to the hotel instead of criticising my parenting skills.” Mary leaned over her son and patted his cheek. “Dean, it’s Mom. Can you hear me?”

Dean didn’t answer. His face was screwed up in pain just like her younger son’s and his temperature was far too high. Jody reached out her hand to Dean’s forehead but Mary slapped her away.

Jody backed off, hands raised. “I’ll help you get Dean down to the ground. You’ll need to bring the car closer. There is no way we can get them all the way out there ourselves.”

Mary nodded and looked around until she spotted a decent length of rope. It wasn’t ideal but unless Dean regained consciousness, it would have to do. She and Jody lifted Dean into a sitting position and tied the rope under his armpits. Then Jody climbed down the ladder and Mary lowered her son into Jody’s arms. Dean didn’t respond at all to their rough treatment. 

Sam was aware enough that he reached out for his brother when they laid him down and he clasped tight to Dean’s wrist before losing himself to the pain once more.

Mary rushed to the barn door. She threw open the doors and ran to get the car. John would be horrified if he knew Mary was driving it into a field like this. Hell, Dean would be too, but he could yell once she had saved him.

When she ran back in, Jody was kneeling on the back of a young witch.

“She was hiding behind some hay bales,” Jody puffed. “I thought maybe she could be useful.”

Mary knelt beside Jody and spoke to the girl. She gazed into wide, frightened eyes and scowled. “Can you be useful?” She asked menacingly.

The girl, who seemed to be no more than 16, nodded as frantically as her restrained position would allow her and started to babble. “Please don’t kill me. I didn’t want to do it. They said they would kill me if I told anyone. I haven’t sold my soul or anything yet. I only have the tiniest bit of power and I don’t want it anymore. I’ll give it up. Please don’t kill me.”

“I won’t but she might,” Jody said. Mary glared at her but she continued anyway. “Is there anything in this barn that will help up reverse this? It will go a real long way toward convincing my friend here not to put a bullet in your heart.”

“Elspeth’s book. It’s on the altar over there. It has all her spells and counterspells in it. And her amulet. You’ll need it for the counterspells and then you’ll need to destroy it,” the girl wept.

“Take everything,” Mary barked. “We’ll figure this out in the hotel.”

Jody cuffed the girl into the backseat of her car before returning to help Mary load her sons into the Impala. The few minutes it took to get back to the motel, unload the boys, and pull out the books, seemed to take hours. Every time Dean exhaled, Mary feared he wouldn’t inhale again. Sam was bad too but who knew how long Dean had been under the influence of the spell before they had reached the barn. They didn’t exactly have a timeline for how long this would take to kill him.

“It’s the same spell,” Jody looked up in relief after studying the spell book for a while. “The same antidote will do for both. And the ingredients are here in the stuff we grabbed from the altar. All except...a mother’s love?”

“What the hell does ‘a mother’s love’ mean?” Mary barks at the poor girl.

“It’s b-blood magic,” the girl stammers. “Elspeth really hates non witches and her blood is an ingredient in every spell. The only thing that works to counteract is blood from someone who loves the person, preferably female, preferably related, and also for the person’s whole life. It’s really specific.”

Jody had already been working on mixing up the antidote. She shoved the bowl over to Mary. Mary rolled her eyes but pulled out her knife and splashed her blood into the bowl with the remedy and mixed it up. She recited the chant from the book and the potion glowed and then settled. Mary took the horsehair brush from the table and painted the symbols she was shown, first on Dean.

The symbols on Dean’s chest immediately glowed bright purple. Dean arched his back and shouted as the symbols burnt into his skin and then faded. He took a deep breath, turned onto his side and vomited a thick black sludge onto the floor. Then he collapsed back onto the bed.

“Mom?” he whimpered.

“I’m here, baby. Do you feel better?” Mary asked, brushing his sweat-dampened bangs back from his forehead.

Dean nodded and opened his mouth to speak again. “Sam?”

“Your brother is going to be fine,” Mary smiled down at her oldest before picking up the bowl and painting the symbols once more. But nothing happened. Sam lay there on the bed, fever still rising, crying out in his unconscious state, potion symbols dripping down his chest and losing their shape.

“How long does it take?” Dean asked hoarsely.

“It happened right away with you,” Mary said. She strode across the room to where the little witch girl was still tied to the chair. “What happened? Do we need to make a separate dose?”

The girl shrunk back. “It should work I swear. So long as you’re his mother and you love him.”

“I,” Mary said. “I am his mother. This is my Sammy.”

“But do you love him?” Jody asked softly.

“Of course I do,” Mary ranted. “I carried him in my belly for nine months. I DIED trying to protect him. He’s my SON!”

“Mom,” Dean reached out to her helplessly. 

“Mary…” Jody began.

“You want to be his mother? Fine,” Mary spat. She shoved the bowl into Jody’s hands.

Jody looked at her in shock but obediently added a splash of her own blood to the mixture and chanting once more. She gently wiped the old symbols off Sam’s chest with a damp cloth and then painted them anew. They glowed, although not nearly as vibrantly. Sam breathed easier and opened his eyes but he didn’t throw up.

“It won’t be enough,” the girl said. “The love might be there but the curse won’t be broken without the blood connection. You’ve bought him time but he’s still going to die.”

Mary stood, staring blankly at the girl. She pulled her gun and aimed it right between her eyes. She ignored the simultaneous shouts of “mom” and “Mary.” “There has to be another way,” she growled.

“I’m sorry,” the girl cried. “I can’t do anything else.” Jody dropped a comforting arm around the girl’s shoulder and shielded her from Mary’s gun.

“We promised we wouldn’t kill her and I’m keeping my promise,” Jody said firmly. 

“Whatever, but we should get out of here before someone comes to investigate,” she said, pulling Dean to his feet, leaving Jody to help a shaking Sam.

Mary drove and Dean sat in the back with Sam. Sam curled up as much as his long frame would allow and rested his head in Dean’s lap. He slept most of the way but every once in awhile, he started awake with a cry of pain. And every time he did, Dean’s eyes met hers in the rearview mirror and she could hardly bear it. He didn’t look angry. He wasn’t going to yell. But there was a level of hurt in his eyes that she hadn’t seen before, as if the thought that she wouldn’t love Sam just as much as she loved him would wound him at his very core. She didn’t know what to say so she said nothing at all.

Later, Mary sat at the kitchen table in the bunker. Sam was in his bedroom, still alive, and Dean was with him. He had hardly spoken two words to her since she failed to cure Sam. She felt isolated from her boy in a way she never thought she could.

Jody came into the room but she didn’t sit down. She did set a drink down in front of Mary and hand her Sam’s tablet. It was open to an article on postpartum depression. “When I gave birth to Owen, I found it very difficult. I was supposed to be happy that I could finally hold my baby in my arms. My husband was over the moon. But all I could think was that I missed my child, having him inside, his heart beating under mine, kicking me from inside. I couldn’t reconcile the two. I couldn’t sleep, I was so busy waking up to feed him, to change him. My husband tried to help as much as possible. But the truth was, I resented my baby for changing my life. I don’t know if you ever dealt with that. This is the only part of your experience I could possibly have in common. But you need to think and think hard about what is going on. You need to find a way to love that boy in there. I REFUSE to lose another son.” Jody turned to go but paused at the door. “I don’t think it’s too late for Marie. I’m going to take her back to mine, see if she can find some sort of redemption.” She waited until Mary nodded and then she left.

Mary sat at the table for a long time. She read a little, thought a lot more. Finally she stood and went down the hallway to knock softly on Sam’s door. Dean looked up at her. He looked wrecked. He had hardly had time to recover from his own ordeal before he was thrust into nursing his brother.

“Changing of the guard,” she tried to smile but her quip fell flat as Dean stared her down.

“Why are you here?” he growled.

“I need to talk to Sam,” she said simply.

“Haven’t you done enough damage already?”

“Dean…” she pleaded.

“No, you have no idea what you’ve done. All his life, he’s heard stories about you. He was the only one of us who never got to know you. So I told him about you when the pain of losing you wasn’t too great. Later, my memories faded but there was one thing I could always count on to be true, that you loved him. And now you’re telling me that was a lie? That Sam never had a mother at all?”

“Of course not. I do love him. It’s just...complicated.” Mary looked away.

“Well, uncomplicate it. Because he needs you right now. I am not losing him this way.” Dean tightened his grip on his brother’s hand.

“Then let me talk to him,” she asked.

“It’s ok, Dean,” Sam whispered. “Go get some rest. You look like crap.”

Dean stood up and left the room but he very pointedly left the door open as he crossed into his own bedroom.

Once again Mary found herself at a loss for words. She looked at him for a minute or two before he weakly patted the bed beside him and asked her to sit down. She did but she still couldn’t look him in the eye.

“I’m sorry,” she finally said.

“It’s ok, Mom,” Sam whispered.

“No, it’s not. I can’t get my head on straight and it’s killing you.” Mary angrily dashed a tear from the corner of her eye.

“We just haven’t had enough time…” Sam started.

“No, that isn’t it. I was a terrible mother.” She saw Sam open his mouth to speak and placed her finger over his lips. It wasn’t an easy pregnancy. I was sick all the time. Your dad was working constantly because we couldn’t afford to have another child. Dean was loving and sweet but he was also rambunctious and curious and I could barely keep up with him on a good day. And then you were born and I felt responsibility, duty maybe, to keep you fed and taken care of. And we were the perfect family before you came along. And though I knew you were a baby I couldn’t help but blame you, just a little bit.” Mary looked down at her son and wished she wasn’t the cause of the tears in his eyes.

“And then I died and came back to life and you were fully grown but you were in the life I left all because I couldn’t protect you from a demon. And then you had to endure so much, all because of the demon deal I made long before you were born. I gave you life and then I abandoned you. And then I didn’t blame you anymore. I blamed myself. I could have been better. I should have been better. I don’t deserve to love you,” Mary gave up on wiping the tears away and just let them flow.

Sam’s hand was at her shoulder then. Somehow he found the strength to pull her down to him and cradle her against his chest. “Mom, whatever happened in the past and whatever is happening now, I forgive you, for all of it. And even if you can’t find it in your heart to love me, I love you and I am proud to call myself your son.”

Mary let go and cried into his chest for what felt like hours. Eventually, she ran out of tears and just allowed herself to be held. There really was not a lot of her in Sam. There was more of John but even so, there was a part of her boy that was unique to himself, a gentle strength instead of a violent one. He had carved out a place for himself in this world that no one else could fill and suddenly she could not bear the thought of seeing that place empty. On impulse, she sat up and planted a soft kiss on her baby’s forehead.

The effect was immediate. The symbols lit up through Sam’s clothing and he convulsed in pain. Then he half sat up and promptly vomited into Mary’s lap. It was gross and Mary had to concentrate hard to keep from throwing up herself, but she didn’t mind too much. She brushed Sam’s hair back off his forehead and smiled down at him. She was holding her son. And she loved him.


End file.
